A question about dual graphics card......

Tahmeed Bin Enam

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Jan 23, 2015
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Ok first of all, I am am a noob :p.So now i want to ask what is actually the concept of dual video cards for gaming?I am planning to buy a Saphire R7 250x 1GB GDDR5 GPU for now.Is it possible if i buy another exact same GPU again can i fit both together in my motherboard for double performance?If yes, what GPU it be equivalent to?Also can you guys suggest me a better GPU if available within 100$s?I'm very sorry if theres a mistake.I have a GIGABYTE H61 ultra-durable Mobo btw.
 

chenw

Honorable
Two video cards primarily combine their GPU processing power to give you more power than the GPU on its own, however dual GPUs have a few setbacks:

1. VRAM is not added in multi-GPU setups, if you Xfire 2 1GB cards together, you will still only have 1GB VRAM because data is cloned on each card.
If the card in question is a dual GPU single PCB card (like 295x, your 250 is not), then effective VRAM is half of what it says on the box.

2. Games themselves have to support Xfire/SLI to make use of it. How much more fps you get from Xfire also depends on the game, some can get close to 100% scaling, some not so high. Some games do not support Xfire/SLI at all. Best to check each game's review to check Xfire compatibility.

3. Your motherboard has to have the proper SLI slots to XFire/SLI (SLI is pickier), an exact model of your model would be required to see if Xfire is an option for you, though I do not think H series is going to give you very good performance either way.

Also a personal opinion

250 is far too weak of a card to consider for Xfire, I would consider Xfire with a minimum of 280x, and only if you need the extra power. I would highly recommend a single card upgrade instead.
 

11sphere92

Distinguished
Well yeah, dual graph card, don't count its like multiply it by 2. But about the VRAM it will stay the same, but its will process faster for easy example you got 2 graphcard, yet your monitor is kinda big. So they split the process, Graphic card one half left and graphic card two half right, which they can focus way better right?

Anyway sry for bad english and i hope you understand
 

chenw

Honorable
That's SFR, or split frame rendering, which as far as I am aware, none of the current GPUs use anymore. I am not sure how exactly the GPU split the workload, but it certainly isn't a hardware only thing, all kind of Multi GPU setups actually need software to support it for Xfire to work.